When he was running for governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro promised to govern as a new kind of common-sense Democrat – who wasn’t ruled by the union bosses and the progressive left. Shapiro routinely touted his support of school choice for minority kids in failing schools.

“It’s what I believe in,” he told voters when he was running for Governor. Two weeks ago on a national Fox News broadcast Shapiro was unequivocal in his support for school choice because “every child of God deserves a quality education.”

But there’s a force far more powerful in politics than his convictions – such as they are. And that force is the teachers’ unions. They put on a full-court press to stop the roughly 10,000 vouchers for the poorest kids in the state’s worst school districts even though the budget bill gave billions MORE for the public schools. It didn’t matter that this voucher program comprised less than one-half of one percent of state spending. The union brass commanded Democrats to vote no on even a single penny going to schools that work.

In the end, Shapiro surrendered without a fight. He might as well have declared that black lives don’t matter.

Shapiro has presidential ambitions. But if you can’t face down Randi Weingarten, how are you ever going to stand up to bullies like China’s President Xi or Russia’s Putin?

It’s the end of the brief Shapiro legend.